Chapter 26 · He Never Wanted Her Root

The scream ripped out of me before I could stop it.

Lin Yuan's hand was inside my chest. Not literally—his fingers hovered an inch above my sternum—but I felt every nerve ending in my body light up like he'd hooked me to a live wire. The seal around my spirit root cracked open with a sound like ice splitting, and suddenly I couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't do anything except feel him tearing something loose inside me.

"Stop—" I choked out, but he wasn't listening.

His eyes were black all the way through now, no white left, and his mouth moved in words I couldn't hear over the roaring in my ears. The blood contract on the altar flared white-hot. The silver chain binding Su Qing's wrist tightened until she screamed, her blood pouring faster into the array carved into the stone floor.

And my mother's voice—still echoing up from the dark under the altar—went quiet.

That terrified me more than anything else.

"Lin Yuan, you're killing her!" Gu Hanchuan's shout cut through the noise.